Google’s “enhanced” voice search lands in iOS App Store

"Siri, can you please launch Google's new iOS search app?"

Google is aiming to chip away at Siri, potentially converting some iOS device users to its own side along the way. The company announced on Tuesday that its updated Google Search app for iOS is now available on the App Store, complete with its new "enhanced" voice search capabilities that Google discussed in August.

According to Tuesday's Google Blog post, the new voice search feature aims to better recognize the context and intent of your searches while providing "the comprehensive Google search results you know and love."

Indeed, some of the provided examples (along with the promotional video, embedded below) show Google's voice search giving better results for certain kinds of requests—such as "what does Yankee Stadium look like?"—than Siri does for those same requests. But for others, such as "when does daylight saving time end," or "who's in the cast of The Office," I found that Siri could provide those same answers just as easily.

Still, if you find yourself using the Google Search app often, it might be more convenient for you to continue using it when it comes to voice searches. The downside to trying to switch to this app over Siri is that Siri can do certain things on your iOS device, like creating reminders or appointments, that a third-party app cannot. But as we noted in August, Google's enhanced voice search within iOS is largely the same as what it offers for Android (at least under Jelly Bean), so Google may be gunning to convert a few users in any way it can.

I use google voice search services on my BB and have for some time. Works great as I don't have to type while driving. The audio feedback portion is really cool though and I haven't seen that. Any chance this is coming to RIM devices anytime soon?

In before 'RIM IS DEAD'. I'm just genuinely curious. Sounds like a great app.

Google does a bit better then Siri on the queries that Siri dumps into Wolfram Alpha, like unit conversions. Faster and it speaks the answer, compared to Siri just saying "here's what I found" and a wall of text.

But it also misses on a lot of phrasings that Siri can handle, and just dumps them to Google Search, which usually gives poor results. Like "how far is it to Target" works well enough on Siri (acts like "where is Target") but gives useless results on Google.

the provided examples (along with the promotional video, embedded below) show Google's voice search giving better results for certain kinds of requests—such as "what does Yankee Stadium look like?"—than Siri does for those same requests.

If I ask Siri that question, it shows it to me on the map, and I can zoom right in and interact with a full 3D model based on high resolution aerial videos. That seems pretty damn good to me.

Marketing claims aside, actually using it is interesting. It is incredibly fast, but completely inaccurate. Sometimes I have to say the same thing four or five times, and in several tests it never matched my natural voice. Siri, on the other hand, is almost always spot on.

I guess that's the trade off processing the voice locally vs in a remote datacenter. Speed vs Accuracy.

Siri can do certain things on your iOS device, like creating reminders or appointments, that a third-party app cannot.

The SDK’s allowed creating events since iOS 4, and reminders since iOS 6. The main obstacle to a third-party app doing something like this is that there’s no system-wide shortcut to get to it—holding down the Home button is always going to be quicker than getting into an app like this one unless you already have it open.

I guess it would be possible to put the (an) app in listening mode as soon as it is activated, and add it as one of the four bottom shortcuts. Of course, Apple can say "naahhh...not approving this" to that.

I think they are equally effective in the "doing stuff on the internet" side. Google may have a bit of a win even.

But Siri is much more actually useful at "doing stuff on your phone". Setting a timer or alarm with Siri is much easier than doing it with touches, and obviously Google or anything not by Apple can't even do anything analogous on iOS due to the limitations on inter-app communication.

Google does a bit better then Siri on the queries that Siri dumps into Wolfram Alpha, like unit conversions. Faster and it speaks the answer, compared to Siri just saying "here's what I found" and a wall of text.

But it also misses on a lot of phrasings that Siri can handle, and just dumps them to Google Search, which usually gives poor results. Like "how far is it to Target" works well enough on Siri (acts like "where is Target") but gives useless results on Google.

I think Siri was best and inadvertently summarized by one of my many iPhone owning friends:"Man, Siri can Google anything!."

Having tinkered with both iPhones and my Android device, I find Google's search is universally better at voice detection than Siri. That alone may give it an advantage on the iPhone market, although it obviously has a distinct handicap in not being built in to the operating system. Google Now has significant advantages when in its home stadium of Android that will not likely show up on iOS.

My experience, though obviously anecdotal, has been this (actual tests)-----------------------Query: "Remind me to post a comment for Ars Technica at 7 p.m."

why in the world would I want an app like Siri from Google? At least when I ask Siri something I'm not being turned into advertising fodder, not being recorded for posterity as I have to assume Google does.

Perhaps it's my non US accent, but Siri manages to get it (it does have the advantage of being able to look into my address book though).

Google can look into your address book. The first time you use Siri, a dialog will popup asking for permission to access address book data. Google's app does not present the dialog, so clearly they are not using your address book.

(for the android community, the iOS address book allows you to type a phonetic version of each person's name, as well as alternate names and family relationships (dad, my brother, my boss's wife, etc) so that it integrates better into siri.

Google Voice Search is incredibly fast. You can even see it rejigging what it's hearing as you continue your sentence - and the results come back almost instantly, too (on my home wifi). Using 3G it was pretty fast, too - though voice recognition suffered slightly ("When was Cromwell born?" became "When will the world porn" at first, but was correct when I spoke a little slower). Even on 2G it worked reasonably well. With no data service it stopped working - but even then, it lets you know faster than Siri does.

All in all, it's waaaay better than Siri for voice recognition and search - if you could set it to open in active voice search mode it would be in my Dock...

I'm surprised that Apple has approved the app at all. I thought Apple rejected any app that had the same purpose as something built into the iOS device. This and Siri clearly have the same purpose, and the Google Maps app has already been removed, so how did this get through?

I just played with this for a little bit on an iPhone 3GS with iOS 5. One thing that doesn't make sense to me is that you can ask for a map of your city or nearby gas stations. But when you click on the map, a pop up opens and it asks if you'd like to open the Maps app. Sometimes it opens up Safari and goes to the Google Maps page. One time it opened up a new tab in the Google app, which then opened up the Google Maps page. It's just not consistent. It makes having to turn on Location Services a pain as well, as I had it off for Safari as well as Google Search. And even if Location Services are on for Google Search, asking "how do I get to..." or "give me directions to..." only gave me a map of my destination, no directions at all.

If Google could improve upon this and process voice requests for directions and open up Google maps within the new Google Search app, that would be much more streamlined and easier to use. There is a lot of potential there (especially with how people are saying iOS 6's map app isn't as good as iOS 5's).

This is amazing, especially its speed. I wouldn't necessarily compare it to Siri, since "answers" vs. "search results" are different.

For example, I live in France and we've already changed to winter time ("fall back" one hour). When I asked when daylight savings time began, Google Search gave a fast - but incorrect - response of November 4, 2012. Not only is that when DST ends, it's the date in the U.S. The same question, when I asked Siri, gave me March 10, 2013. The correct date for the U.S., not France - but at least it's the actual start.

I chalk the wrong geo-based rule to my using my phone in U.S. English. When I asked more precisely, "when is daylight saving time in Paris", I got the right reply from Siri (March 31, 2013) and a weird result from Google Search ("2012"),

I use Siri for questions (not searches), and to set up reminders/appointments. So, for me, Siri remains my first choice.

But Google Search on the same hardware/OS as Siri clearly shows how much better Siri could become. It's not just faster, but more accurate: I can even see how it corrects itself when I stumble verbally. "How fast is an unladen spa-uh-swallow" visibly backtracks and erases the start of "sparrow" with "swallow".

Very nice, Google! I actually re-installed the Google Search app for this, and I'm definitely going to keep it on my phone.

saying "I need a mechanic" opened showed some unrelated searches and a youtube video called "i need a mechanic" I had to just say "mechanic" to get the behavior in the promo video. Saying "show me pictures of whales" didn't do anything, even trying things like "images whales" "whales pictures" didn't do it.

saying "I need a mechanic" opened showed some unrelated searches and a youtube video called "i need a mechanic" I had to just say "mechanic" to get the behavior in the promo video. Saying "show me pictures of whales" didn't do anything, even trying things like "images whales" "whales pictures" didn't do it.

I think it is hard for any search engine to figure out what your asking for unless those phrases are hard coded. But asking "Where is the closest car repair shop" or "where is the closest auto repair shop" or "where is the closest mechanic" should give you good results.

Asking it "Whale pictures" or "Dog Pictures" or anything ending in pictures will give you image results... The same goes for the inverse "Pictures of dogs" "Pictures of whales" . Though it tries to understand what you are saying there still is some learning curve on how to activate certain features... The same goes for Siri, the people I know who actually use it had to change the way they ask questions because Siri will get confused with certain syntax...

The downside to trying to switch to this app over Siri is that Siri can do certain things on your iOS device, like creating reminders or appointments, that a third-party app cannot.

Can the google app add something to my google calendar which would then show up on my ios device? or is it just a limitation of the app?

Google doesn't need to integrate their stuff (it would be nice to do though). Apple APIs do allow you to access contacts, reminders, calendars, messages (I even think Facetime and phone calls, don't quote me on the two though) as well as Facebook and Twitter (Facebook and Twitter also have their own APIs). I can definitely list more, composing emails for example can also be done. The thing is, Google would have to implement, then cross implement it's own stuff too. It's a great deal of work, but it can be done.

Google's voice search is really just that though, it's a search, nothing more. I think that's What Google intended it for. It'll pull up search results from the web, and speak it back to you.

I will admit this though, Google's search techniques are faster. It's expected though, Google is a data company who's strength lies in the fact that they can go through tons and tons of data in a fast fashion and shove relevant results back at you in the most efficient and fastest possible way.

But by limiting what Google is expecting, a search, Google doesn't have to create an algorithm to figure out what the user is asking for. It will always be a search. This lack of an additional algorithm speeds stuff up. If Google implements the other stuff (listed above), they would have to add in an extra algorithm in to filter through and figure out exactly what the user wants: create a reminder, calendar event, view a calendar event (it has to differentiate between the two view and create), read back a text, etc. They can do that, but it will slow down the results and the real speed advantage that Google has over Siri right now.

I'm also suprised that we haven't seen a "Watson" app from IBM on any of the platforms. I'm pretty sure the Jepordy champ could give Siri a run for her money.

Being that IBM had cultivated an image and brand around Watson it's not a far stretch.

Watson would destroy everything... And guess what, IBM is developing a Watson for the real world. This time, however, it will have internet access to search stuff for you The only adjustment it really needs is to be able to:-do actions, not just answer questions. EG make a reminder, not just show you your reminders (what Google currently does).-Answer to things not worded in a Jeopardy question. This is a huge must!

One interesting note about Google's Voice Search on iOS is that it is supported on *way* more devices than Siri. Google Voice Search works on older iPhones, iPads and my iPod Touch 4g where Siri does not. So for lots of iOS device users where there was no available voice search before, there now is. Pretty awesome even if it doesn't have feature parity with Siri.